Ridiculous.

"Take your self seriously.  You need to take yourself seriously as a writer and an artist."  I hear this all the time, and I try, but somewhere inside I feel like a goof ball.  As much as I do try to be serious, I do like to make people laugh, sometimes I do it to myself.

The other morning, while applying mascara, I lost control of the wand and somehow ended up with mascara on my face, a long streak in my hair and a nice schmearing in the sink.  I've been applying mascara for a lonnnnng time.  Too many to have wand control issues.  It was "start over" situation.  I couldn't help but look at my smudged up self in the mirror and say with a laugh, "F'ing ridiculous.  What in the hell....?"

Remember the cleaning service I was so excited about? (Just When You Think You Got It -from January) Well, apparently there was some sort of falling out and these people want to put me in the middle.  I do not play like this.  Both sides wanting to state their case, putting me in an awkward situation.  I had the one gal on the phone telling me not to answer my door -to the guy with the new hire lady.   I did a little, bumbling, salsa type move and decided to open the door anyway.  This is my house.  I am paying for this right?  This is ridiculous, they can both screw off.  

The new cleaning service promised that on the first cleaning, "...everything gets touched.  No surface gets passed by."  I'm half tempted to stand there naked and call it spa day.

Then my daughter accused me of being ridiculous.  Which is completely unfair as she did not witness the mascara mishap, the salsa move nor did I share my thoughts on combining cleaning day with spa day; I simply wanted to double check her homework.  Trying to explain the difference between being mom and being ridiculous proved futile.  

I did manage to get T-Rexy to the computer guy who is going to help me get it published.  It took ridiculously too long for me to get to this point, but let's not dwell.  I'm now calling it "progress".  I also managed to scan my baby elephant and sun picture so I can mail it off tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get the mum notecards ordered this week, otherwise I may have to use a sun.  Stay tuned.

I read this great post by Ruthann Reid http://thewritepractice.com/screw-the-muse/
Say it with me, "I am a       writer/artist      !"  Fill in your blank.  Be positive.  Own it.

I'm going to leave you again with music.  You know when you hear a song and you find your self singing it all day? I actually sang that new Bieber song for an entire afternoon -and sometimes out loud.  Bieber.  I know, I'm relinquishing my cool card.  This guy, though, is pretty cool.  Kurt Vile.  Right?  Great name. 

“Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon. or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Just keep on, despite everything.  Sometimes it's small baby steps while resembling a raccoon and and some times it goes better.  Just keep doing it.